Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

I'm very pleased to greet you. I'm Nigel Newton, founder and chief executive of Bloomsbury, and I am joined by Keith Underwood, chief financial and operating officer recently appointed by us. So if I can move on to the first slide, please, of highlights, we make the point that our Portfolio of portfolios has been a resilient model through consumer and academic publishing. This makes us very rare, if not unique, in our industry. and is the basis of the good numbers that we're able to report to you today because like our shareholders on the public markets, we are not dependent on one type of revenue stream. We're exposed to both the consumer on the high street and the main street, and at the same time to the huge institutional buying power of tens of billions of dollars worldwide in academic libraries. Profits are up 7% to $44.9 million, and that is great because it's been the basis of the dividend being up 5%. We shall point out on a slide some of you are familiar with, the 31-year unbroken track record of Bloomsbury dividend growth. Hoorah. We have an AI licensing agreement that we announced in July that I'm very pleased to tell you is ongoing in financial year 2021. 26, 27. Completely separately from that, we announced in December a partnership with Google on a number of tools that are being developed. implemented throughout Bloomsbury to all 1,250 of our colleagues. We are creating the Bloomsbury brain that will ultimately read in its secured off-from-the-internet walled garden. a database of every word that we've ever published that we can utilize in so many different ways to make future decisions based on the evidence of the past, what to publish, how much to pay for books, how many copies to print of books, and many other things. We have streamlined and simplified our operating structure, which will have an effect on our financial performance and a good one. You have two choices really in a business of a matrix structure or a vertical structure. And though the matrix has served us very well, We've moved from the one to the other with all kinds of changes in how we sell. For example, in America, we sold through a third party, Macmillan Publishing Services. We've now recruited a dynamic team of our own key account managers selling direct for the first time to our very big customers over there. This new structure will benefit us enormously. As you will see, we have a very strong consumer front list in the year ahead, including remarkably not one but two new Sarah J. Maas novels. The board has strong confidence in delivering a record profit. line with recently upgraded expectations for the year 26-27. And the board is strengthened with the appointment not only of Keith Underwood, but of my colleague Jenny Rideout, who is the Managing Director of Bloomsbury Academic and Professional, now including with responsibility for sales, marketing, and publicity in the new structure, following in the footsteps of previous leaders a Bloomsbury academic being on the PLC board, Richard Sharken and later Jonathan Glasspool. We also have a third appointment as a non-executive director, Chris Blatchford, a very brilliant man with considerable expertise in As a chief technology officer, he had, was it 800 data scientists reporting to him at our academic competitor Elsevier within Relex, and it presently holds this high office for Kingfisher PLC. And we are very pleased indeed to have his expertise, which is granular and tactical as well as strategic at a time when the world is becoming increasingly digital. And Bloomsbury wants to be at the forefront of all change that will benefit us. You didn't have long to wait for that. It looks like an urban landscape of skyscrapers leading to this big jump in the dividend just announced. Next slide, please.

Well, good morning, everyone. I am really pleased to be here and delighted to be presenting robust results for Bloomsbury in a really, really strong outlook. Bloomsbury's investment case is one of strong shareholder returns, as you can see from the earlier slide, derived from a diversified portfolio across academic and consumer publishing, across print and digital, and from an increasingly international footprint. Organic growth has been supplemented by 34 carefully selected and skilfully integrated acquisitions, with the most recent one being the £65 million acquisition of Roman and Littlefield, which was conducted in May 2024. In terms of the highlights, we're reporting robust results. FY26 profit is 44.9 million. That's a margin of 13.8%, which is up 210 basis points from 11.7 in the previous year. And as we'll come on to show, that growth has been driven by digital sales within our academic and professional business. As expected, total revenue is down year on year, given the strong comparative that we had in the consumer division in the prior year. EPS is up 8% to 44.57p. And we've continued, as Nigel said, our outstanding track record of unbroken dividend growth. We have a strong balance sheet, as you can see. Total net assets are broadly flat at 216 million. And within working capital, we've worked really hard to basically reduce our finished stock balances by over 20% to 35 million. And we've continued to drive operational efficiencies from new distribution partners. Our net cash position has improved from 17 million to 29 million. And that consists of cash of 44 million and a debt balance of 15 million. And this slide just bridges that cash flow movement. The closing net cash balance of 29 million, well, that will draw down, as you've seen in previous years, that will draw down in the first half of the year and then build up in the second half, particularly given the second half weighting of our consumer list. And our capital allocation priorities are very much focused on internal investment to drive organic growth, debt reduction, dividends, and where appropriate, bolt-on acquisitions.

Consumer. The consumer division had, as you recall, an extremely strong comparative, but achieved revenue of $218 million and a profit of $20.5 million with a margin of 9%. On the next slide, you can see the great diversification of our consumer portfolio continuing to shine through with a real breadth of critical and commercial success across many different genres. In Romanticy, Sarah J. Maas returned to the bestseller list in 2025 with the release of the paperback of The House of Fame and Shadow, and her fans are thrilled that she is now releasing two books in the Court of Thorns and Roses series in the year ahead. In the U.S., Renee Watson won the Newbery Medal for the New York Times bestseller All the Blues in the Sky. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series remains in the top ten. The TV serialization of Harry Potter will be launched at Christmas, helping to introduce the series to a whole new generation of children over the coming years. In nonfiction, Gillian Anderson's Want in paperback was in the top ten on the Sunday Times bestseller list for 22 weeks, including nine weeks in the number one spot. In children's, our bestselling author Catherine Rundell announced a long-term film deal with Walt Disney Studios, which will significantly boost her already bestselling career. Impossible Creatures series, the next volume of which is due out in August. We have also had continued success in fantasy from Samantha Shannon and in cookery from Papio Tool, both of whom have new books coming in this year too.